adminChronicle Reporter
THE Professor Welshman Ncube-led MDC yesterday disowned ‘‘rebels’’ Siyabonga Malandu Ncube and Edward Mkhosi who defected to the MDC-T on Saturday.The duo lost their seats to Zanu-PF in last year’s July 31 harmonised elections and are believed to be part of a group aggrieved by the alleged imposition of party secretary-general Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga as a member of the National Assembly in Matabeleland South under proportional representation.
However, MDC national Nhlanhla Dube said Malandu and Mkhosi were free agents who left the party way back.
“The MDC would like to make it categorically clear that former MPs, Edward Mkhosi and Siyabonga Malandu Ncube who were purported to have defected from our party at an MDC-T rally at Stanley Square in Bulawayo yesterday are in fact not our members,” Dube said.
“It is a matter of public record that they stopped being our members several months ago when they publicly terminated their membership.
“These two have been free agents for several months and as true believers and practitioners of democracy, we respect their freedom of political association and choice. Therefore to call them defectors is incorrect and deliberately false.”
Dube said Malandu and Mkhosi have always belonged to MDC-T in spirit saying they were part of the group of 10 MPs and senators who were bribed by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Botswana back in 2008 to return to his party.
“The others, including Nomalanga Khumalo, Norman Mpofu and Abednico Bhebhe went back immediately while Malandu and Mkhosi stayed on because of the perceived benefits of the unity government where parliamentary committees such as Copac where Mkhosi was deployed by the party, provided rich pickings,” he said.
“It was inevitable therefore that sooner or later these remaining two would go back to their funders at some point in their political lives.”
Dube said his party was aware of attempts by the MDC-T to try and fool Zimbabweans into believing that some of their genuine members including Paul Themba Nyathi, Moses Mzila Ndlovu, Jealous Sansole, Esaph Mdlongwa, Jeffret Khumalo, Rittah Ndlovu, and Million Moyo among others, would join the MDC-T, which he described as a violent party. “They were proved to be the liars that they are because these are genuine cadres who would never go back to violence as it goes against everything the MDC stands for.
“We are aware that this was a foolish attempt by the ever deceptive MDC-T to try and divert attention from their burning house and leader who is clearly drowning in the deep end and clutching at straws,” he said
Online Reporter